Chapter 3 Dark Past

• PIETRO GIACOMETTI
• The first time I met Peaches, I was thirteen.
• The children all feared me—the scar on my arm was how I had taught him not to mess with me. I hated the smiles on their faces and I hated how free they were, running around.
• Except for one.
• "I am Caily, daughter of the gardener. Nice to meet you." She got up on her feet, a smile parting her lips. I hated seeing the other kids smile and I should have hated the smile on her face too but strangely, her smile wasn't annoying.
• Weird.
• Her eyes were of a bluish colour, a colour so light that it seemed so easy to get lost in them. She was close to me and I could breathe in her scent, a cheap perfume that smelt like peaches.
• "Peaches" was the first word that left my lips.
• "Ugh? Is that your name?" She asked, that smile crossing her lips again.
• "No. It's yours."
• "No, my name is..."
• "I will call you Peaches from now on." I cut her off and a small frown appeared on her face before she shook it off with the smile.
• "Since you helped me get back my drawing, you can call me whatever you want. What do you want from me in exchange for your help?"
• You. I want to own you, Peaches.
• But I didn't tell her those words. The words sounded a bit crazy, even to me. It was always the urge to hurt and watch others cry in pain, never this new urge.
• From then on, Peaches was my first thought and my last thought every single day.
• Whether she was willing to stay by my side or not, she was mine. She had sold herself out to me and she could only ever belong to me, in this lifetime and even in the next.
• "Journie? Journie! You were peeping on me bathing?!" Caily's scream and those words sent me racing into her room.
• "Fucking cunt!" I cursed, smashing the plate in my hand against the nearest wall and rushing towards him.
• I shoved Journie against the wall and stabbed his right eye with the broken plate in my hand. Caily was mine and mine alone, this bastard setting his eyes on her body made my head ache with anger.
• His scream of tortured pain filled my ears as he tried to push me off him but I stabbed into the eye again. He was never going to see again with the same eyes he had looked at the one who belonged to me.
• "Pietro stop!!" Peaches sounded scared but the more I stabbed into that eye, the more the rage filled me up and I just couldn't stop.
• A few seconds later, the bastard was out of the room but I knew I was still going to get him. I was going to ruin the other eye and make him permanently blind.
• "Pietro." The sniffling from Caily made me feel immense guilt. I hated it every time I was unable to shield this me away from her. I hated the fear in her eyes whenever I lost control in front of her.
• "Peaches." I took a step closer to her and she took a step back.
• I reached my hands up to cup her face but stopped, realising how bloodied my hands were.
• Damn you Pietro.
• "Don't ever do it again, please... Don't ever hurt anyone please. Promise me you won't" she begged and I wrapped my arms around her, pulling her in for a warm hug.
• "I won't."
• But I knew I would. Over and over again, I would maim, torture and kill for her.
• It turned out to be true — brutally true. At eighteen, I made the boldest decision of my life.
• I killed her father.
• That bastard dared to slip his hand under Peaches’ sleep dress and push it a little higher to touch her thighs.
• “Bastard!” I gritted, the anger in me totally fuelled. Her fucking father was touching her, touching his own daughter when she was asleep.
• Without a second of delay, I leapt into the room through the window, the knife held tightly in my right hand.
• There was a loud gasp from Caily as I crashed into the room, breaking a flower vase I had gifted her a few months ago. My blood was boiling, my head was aching and I knew that he just had to be dead.
• How the fuck could he?!
• “Fucking incestuous pedophile!” I tackled him to the floor and stabbed the knife into his chest.
• There was a loud cry from him and Peaches’ cry filled my ears from behind.
• “Die!” I pulled out the knife and stabbed him again, this time in the neck.
• “Pietro!” That thin voice cried from behind me.
• I stabbed again. And again. And again.
• And with each stab, I just got even more furious.
• “Fucking die! You bastard, die!!” I yelled, pulling the knife out of his battered neck and stabbing into his chest once more.
• As soon as I had done that, I stiffened. Peaches had watched me do this but she would understand, wouldn’t she? She would understand me just like she always did.
• Her father had been molesting her and so she would definitely agree with me that he should die in this gruesome manner or even a worse way.
• I was drenched in warm blood. Face, hands and the shirt I was wearing were all covered in the blood of the dead man that laid on the floor.
• Slowly, I rose from his body, my heavy, ragged breathing and my hammering heart loud in my ears. But more than that, the sobs of Peaches were louder.
• “Peaches.” my voice was hoarse and low as I took my first step towards where she knelt, sobbing and crying.
• “I… He was touching you, Peaches.”
• Wrong. I should have apologized first.
• “Mon… Monster. You’re a monster.”
• I stopped in my tracks and blinked as if just realizing that I was indeed a monster. I had known that for a long time but I had never ever thought that Peaches would call me that. She… she never thought humans could be monsters but now, she was calling me one.
• She rose up to her feet and I could see it in her eyes. Fear, anger, hatred and sadness. Every single emotion I hated to see in her eyes were there.
• “You stabbed him so many times in front of me! You monster! I hate you!” Her voice was filled with strong emotions.
• “Get away from me! Get away from me!! I hate you!!”
• “But I love you.” I reached my hands down to hold her trembling hands but it made her tremble even more.
• “You…”
• “I love you, Caily and I was only waiting till you become an adult before I’d tell you about how much I fucking love you and…”
• I was a psychopath. I just killed her father and I was confessing my feelings to her right in the room where her father’s body still laid all battered up and bloodied.
• Caily looked at me, gently shaking her head.
• “I hate you. Read my lips… I hate you so much and I will never ever…” she sniffled back tears, her shoulders shaking with more sobs.
• “Never forgive you!” She snatched her hands away from my grasp and like a fool, I stood there as she ran out of the door. I heard the living room door open and shut and a few seconds later, I could see her through the window. Running away from me in the pouring rain.
• “Peaches.” I reached my hand out pathetically.
• “Don’t. Don’t leave me, Peaches.” I whispered but she ran farther away from me and I just watched as the human who held my last piece of sanity drifted away from me.
• Farther. Farther.
• I sucked in a deep breath, glancing at the broken knife in that bastard— then, out of nowhere, I burst into laughter.
• Tears slipped into my smile, and I tasted salt on my lips.
• "Heal up just fine for me, Peaches.”
• “I'd give you all the time you need to heal up, all the time you need to forget that you ever said you hate me and after then I'll be back to reclaim my position in your life because no matter what happens, you'll always be MINE, PEACHES."